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anyway who is worried about being a terrorist target in Europe better put the bolt locks on their doors and stay inside as if you go out driving or whatever you have a much better chance of being maimed or killed than you do have by terrorists in Europe - again the U.S. is not immune as well so just stay indoors at home and be safe (but house fires no doubt are a bigger threat to your safety too than any terrorist attack.

I'm not going to Australia or Canada, where ISIS has already attacked.

But then, I wasn't going anyway.

I went to Paris about a two weeks after the Charlie Hebdo murders. ISIS threats are global. The instructions are meant to inspire the like-minded/similarly insane to go out and kill people who look like the kind of people who might not agree with whatever it is ISIS thinks is the right thing to think. As far as I can tell, they don't even ask people what it is they think. Like other insane people with determined to kill, hard to make a plan that would guarantee you never become a victim -- whether you are traveling to Canada, Australia, Paris, Copenhagen or just down the street to the post office.

Not me - I figure I should travel now while I still can - it will only get worse before it will get any better. So I have two Italy trips and one Paris trip (my first to France) planned for this year (all utilizing miles).

No, but know people that lived in Europe now say they are afraid to visit. I would use more caution in Orlando. Large crowds don't give me a warm fuzzy feeling anymore. I think it has to do with seeing all the behind the scenes prep for events with bomb squads, rescue crews, bomb sniffing dogs, etc. They set up a war room for these events to cover the what ifs for every scenario. I just can't imagine the super bowl security this year.

No, no change of plans. DH is heading to Copenhagen tomorrow. Daughter on a class trip there in May. Family to Italy in April.

Tiggy. I'm headed to Rome in some weeks and that St. Peter's scenario is not something I hope to encounter. :/

I'm like you flpab- no warm fuzzies with crowds anymore. Stepping into one soon as noted above.

I don't know guys- The other day I rhetorically asked my dh if it was time to move back to the States. If not for the threat of ISIS then because of other creepy political and racist rumblings here in Sweden and other countries in Europe. Seeing a different side to Europe after living here for some years now.

I think Italy is pretty safe compared to the US. Even Canada is safer than the US. That could change if Italy gets involved in foreign adventures or organizes lots of bigoted policies against Muslims, and of course this type of ISIS-lone-wolf-kill-spree stuff can truly happen anywhere, including possibly Italy. But if people are concerned about their day to day safety from nut case violence and backblow from racism, some places are defiitely "greener" than others, and the US is not one of them.

"some places are defiitely "greener" than others, and the US is not one of them."

OTOH, I spent decades in the U.S. without being the victim of a crime, yet in Brussels, a city in supposedly safe western Europe, I was violently mugged and someone tried to shoot my husband at point-blank range.

Actually, I don't consider Brussels as safe as some other European cities but as for your personal experience, while I am sure it was horrible, I stand by my point that the 50 states of the US are so far ahead of most of Europe when it comes to violence-related death and injury, that it is prefectly correct to say that Europe is a much safer place to live than the US. I am sorry so many Americans don't recognize the problem and therefore do nothing to work to change that. It's like climate change deniers.

I note the Economist had an article on this recently and pointed out that White American Men generally die at their own hands (self murder) which is more prominant in the higher-level-of-gun-ownership states. Meanwhile Black American Men tend to die at the hands of other people.

Thank you so much!! I am SO humbly grateful that you realize that a European trying to kill my husband was not a pleasant moment.

I am not a "denier" of gun violence as you so snidely suggest, but I also know that there are many, many American communities that do not have gunfights and murders on every corner. The community I grew up in has not had a gun death in more than a century.

Who is being snide? My remark about being sorry that the great majority of Americans not doing anything about gun deaths wasn't directed at you personally -- I have no idea what you do in your life -- but your remarks directed at me were totally snide, even when mine was recognizing that you had suffered something horrible.

It really doesn't matter that your community hasn't had a gun death in more than a century. How many gun deaths do you think Newton had before their kindergarten chidlren were ripped to pieces by bullets and died in terror? Do you not care about that? That is YOUR community. Amercia is YOUR community. Is it only when something happens two feet from YOU -- positively or negatively -- that you notice? Sorry if you think that is snide, but the fact that YOU faced a gun in Belgium and that YOU never heard of a gun death in YOUR community is like -- so what? YOU are not the whole picture.

Sad story from Weisser Tee - and my relative was also violently mugged in Madrid once early on a Sunday morning in front of Atocha train station. Left bloody and bruised in front of shopkeepers who were opening up but didnot dare intervene and lift a finger or call the cops, etc.

there are dangers far more possible in Europe than being the victim of a terrorist thread.

That should have read 'in the whole of europe' that is what this subject is all about.

(By the way don't think I have any time for ISIS. There is only one way to deal with them, and that is to exterminate them. Their views are non-negotiable, and there is no point in any country trying to do so.)

ISIS can't wait to have people trying to exterminate them. They live and kill for that. Likewise Al Queda. It is part of their strategy to provoke outrageously so that Western governments will be drawn into battle with them. It is their greatest recruiting tool.

Italy recently started making loud noises it was ready to fight -- until they listened to better counsel and are now refusing to take the bait. They are securing sites domestically, but -- we hope! -- they are not going to be suckered into ISIS trap.

Regarding law enforcement killings in the US, it is quite troubling that no one actually knows, accurately, how many occur. Law enforcement agencies are not required to report them into any central data collection, although they are encouraged to "voluntarily" report them to the FBI. Watchdog groups, using news reports, are usually able to show that law enforcement agencies typically report less than half the deaths per year than can be established by reading the news.

I believe best guess is that there are about 1,000 such deaths a yea -- which does add up rather quickly -- and ISIS is estimated to have killed more than 5,000 people last year. However, bear in mind that close to a quarter of a million civilans died in Iraq since 2003 invasion. Saddam Hussein may have killed a quarter of million people in Iraq, although probably half of those deaths occurred while he was being supported by the US.

I think it speaks well of Americans that they are horrified by the brutality of the attacks by ISIS -- although I hope they are not suckered into the ISIS strategy. I think Americans might have been equally horrified if they had watched videos of the brutality of civilian deaths and injuries caused by American weapons and American allies -- and plainly they have been troubled by videos of their own fellow citizens dying under unjustifiable police attack. Too much people have been protected from these pictures and then told: "But only those terrible Muslims do that!" It's not true.

" We do not have a Hindu terrorism problem. Or a Christian or Atheist terrorism problem"

Really?

In the past century my country has suffered terrorism from German and Irish bombers, killing infinitely more people than Islamists even dream of. Most of the Irish bombers claimed to be killing to defend the rights of Catholics: the others to defend the rights of Protestants.

The largest death-toll in a single terrorist attack on Britons in the past century was inflicted by Jewish terrorists. We're still waiting for an apology for that: the terrorists's successors regard the murderers as heroes.

We've had Sikh terrorists murdering on our streets - and the largest single terrorist outrages on European soil in the 21st century have been carried out by Russian Orthodox terrorists.

It's arguable there've been no Hindu terrorists in Europe: but they've murdered more innocent Muslims over the past 70 years in India than Islamism has managed here - and India's Prime Minster has still provided no convincing evidence he didn't support them in their 2002 pogrom in the State he was Chief Minister of.

And that's before we start counting the innocent (mostly Muslim, but Christian and Jewish as well) civilians killed by American and British terrorism in Iraq.

You called it "shock and awe". Everyone else called it just plain terrorism.

I watched this forum for a long time before becoming a member. It was disappointing to see how arrogant, condescending and downright nasty some responses were. It should be a TRAVEl forum for questions, answers and suggestions, right? Not a platform for political views or making those who post questions feel stupid or ignorant if they haven't travelled as extensively as some of you. Geesh people. Stop with the speeches and stay on point to a poster's question. The european forum seems to be the worst offender on Fodors.

My next trip is in May to the UK. I can't imagine canceling it at this point, nor under most circumstances. I won't deliberately go into places I think are too dangerous but I won't stop traveling to the UK and Western Europe.

What can suddenly damper tourissm to Europe is some plane being crashed by a terrorist group - I know personally because I was in the tour business when the Lockerbie disaster happened - folks started cancelling right away in droves (many later came back but still folks can take things way out of context - but a trans-Atlantic plane or two being blown up will put a chill on Americans going to Europe that is for sure.

We are living in the present. And every day ISIS grows and gains territory with the message: die or convert. That is the reality. Very Simple. Give it whatever name you want. You can believe the lies and propaganda. It doesn't change anything. Nothing at all.

Hmm, I was talking to my sister last night about my upcoming trip to Helsiki, St. Petersburg, the Baltics, and Poland. She's quite nervous about my travels this time. She and I visited many countries in Europe for seven or eight years, our last trip being ten years ago.

She's nervous about Putin having his eyes on the Baltics. She's always been a little more nervous than I am about European travel. She used to say that I am bullet-proof.

I guess I'll have to find a cyber cafe every day so I can reassure her that I'm still alive and not locked up somewhere. I thought about getting an ipad or very light laptop so that I could keep in touch, but I hate to haul around anything more.

Since I'll be visiting a total of somewhere between 6 and 10 cities, many of them by bus, I want to keep the luggage to a minimum.

"Lahawk," yes, it's SUPPOSED to be a travel forum where someone posted "are you changing your travel plans to Europe," but the soapboxes come out and there they go onto them, spouting their political viewpoints citing statistics, over and over, arguing with fodorites whom they do not know -- don't they have friends/colleagues/clubs to discuss this stuff with/at?? Apparently not, or perhaps they've stopped listening. It has become an annoyance to me. BTW, we watch Fox News. BTW, no, are not changing plans for France in September. "Pegontheroad" use a smartphone for your checking in back home.

Internet cafes are a thing of the past in many cities these days, as the locals all have their own smart phones/tablets/computers etc. i travel with an iPad (not a mini) and use my hotel/B&B's wifi. And I certainly try to travel light!

I am planning for a Scandinavian trip right now, but will probably start in the Baltics (definitely want to go back to Riga) and am not especially worried. However, although I would really like to revisit Lviv, I do have some doubts about that.

The question wasn't stupid. Nor is discussing what is going on internationally. That's what these forums are for. I have a Mediterranean cruise coming up in June with stops in Italy(Rome), France, and Monte Carlo. I'm not canceling anything. But I don't have my head in the sand either.

I don’t think that people understand that simply saying that there is a low chance of being killed in a terrorist act helps. I think there are lots of people, including myself, that aren't frightened by death, but do care very much how they die. For a believer in democracy, and a staunch believer in a separation of church and state it is a horrid ending at the hands of misogynistic, religious lunatic enemies bent on destroying anything good and decent. To make thinks much worse to have that kind of ending on the streets of nations that exported democracy, feminism, human rights, and the Quaker philosophy(abolitionists). How dare they! You can't coddle cancer, put a bandage on it, wait it out, ignore it or accommodate it.